Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Elon Musk Podcast. This is a show where we discuss the critical crossroads, the Shape, SpaceX, Tesla X, The Boring Company and Neurolink. I'm your host, Will Walden. Waymo is bringing its driverless cars to New York City. The company quietly filed a permit to start mapping the streets of Manhattan in August, and it will begin testing its autonomous vehicles in the city this fall.
This marks the first time that Alphabet Self Driving Division is set foot in the city with its own fleet. Now, Waymo isn't launching a robo taxi service here, at least not yet. These initial runs will keep a human driver behind the wheel with no autonomous driving mode activated. Still, the presence of Waymo's white Jaguar eye paces rolling through the most congested and chaotic traffic grid in the country. Signal said the company is laying down the groundwork for
something much, much bigger. Wemo confirmed it's sending vehicles to collect data throughout Manhattan. These runs will include scenarios like driving through the tunnels, over bridges and into underground parking garages. New York presents a very dense technical challenge most other U.S. cities can't even come close to. Wemo is betting that mastering New York City could help it scale elsewhere with more
confidence. And the New York City Department of Transportation approved Waymo's permit on August 6th of this year, and Waymo submitted the request under a state DMV pilot program that allows autonomous vehicle testing with very strict limitations. Now, this is unlike Phoenix or San Francisco that Waymo operates in. Now. These cars must stay in manual mode at all times and include two trained human safety drivers
inside the vehicle. So this isn't Waymo's first time in New York City, though they went in there for the permit, but they were also upstate. It's the first time the company will operate its own branded vehicles in the city. In a 2021, Waymo quietly ran Lidar mapping tests using rented vehicles without Waymo logos. Sneaky now. That earlier effort made some initial geographic data available, but this new phase brings the project into the
public Waymo branded cars. Waymo's already logged over 1,000,000 driverless miles in Phoenix in San Francisco, and those cities allowed it to launch full autonomous ride handling services with no one behind the wheel. In contrast, New York presents a high friction environment filled with unpredictable pedestrians. People do whatever they want
there. Double parked trucks, there's deliveries all the time, people on bikes, people weaving in and out of traffic in an endless stream of yellow cabs and Ubers that are trying to take over the roadways. The exact type of environment the current EV systems still struggle to handle consistently. But if they can nail this, they can defeat Tesla. The city's rules reflect the
challenge of the actual city. Any autonomous vehicle test in the city must remain under manual control and carry 2 train safety operators at all times. Because nobody knows what's going to happen at any time when you're driving in the city. It's wild. And the state DMV requires detailed incident reports, driving logs, and real time
monitoring. These regulations limit what Wemo can do in the short term, but they also provide a framework for a testing lab the Wemo is doing with more edge cases per mile than almost anywhere in the country. So it's a condensed set of data that Waymo will be gathering by going into the city. A Waymo's entry adds pressure to other AV companies like Cruz and Tesla, which have largely stayed away from New York due to its dense trafficked and strict
regulatory setup. And unlike Cruz, which suffered a string of high profile incidents in San Francisco, is was suspended in California. Waymo has maintained a much cleaner record with regulators. The reputation could help ease its path into more difficult cities like New York City, or as we call it, the city. There's also a political angle
on this move. Waymo began mapping just days before a new congestion pricing plan was supposed to launch in the city, which would have charged vehicles up to $15.00 for entering core business zones. The plan has now been indefinitely paused by the Governor Hochel. If congestion pricing returns, it could reshape how ride hailing and delivery services operate, making autonomous fleets more economically
available. Now we most expansion comes as Alphabet looks to justify its long term bets outside of advertising. They need to do other things. They need to make that trillion dollars now. They pour billions into way more already over the past decade, and while it has made technical progress, commercial success has been kind of slow watching in the city, even in this limited form. Let's Alphabet signal progress in front of investors without promising an actual service
route anytime soon. So once they roll this out, they're going to see an uptick in the stock because they're going to start making money from these Waymo's immediately. The MTA, which controls much of the city's transit infrastructure, though, is not commented on Waymo's mapping plans. To US, your city. Department of Transfer Transportation approved the mapping permit, said it fits within the state's EV testing rules. Right now, local lawmakers have
not raised major objections yet. Like a change once the vehicles become a visible presence on city streets. And depending on if they run into a few bikes or, you know, sideswipe any cars, you never know what's going to happen in the city. So Waymo wants to operate fully driverless cars in New York City one day. It'll need a separate permit, and a regulatory shift from the city has not indicated it's ready to make. But getting the data now puts Wemo in position to move faster.
When that window opens, we MO has to be before Tesla. It's not promising a launch date for robotaxis in New York City quite yet. It's only confirmed the data collection is underway and that their vehicles will appear publicly this fall. That alone marks a shift in how the company is thinking about its national expansion. Think about it like this. Tesla is moving out with their
automated vehicles. Waymo, the first to get into New York City. This is groundbreaking for Waymo. They get the millions of people in the city to take Waymo's instead of Tesla's. I know people that just don't want to be in a Tesla. They will, you know, if they have to, but if Waymo's around, they'll probably do it. It's very, you know, very, let's see, how can I say this? You, you kind of get on a team. We're in the city, right? And you, you know, that kind of
person. So if Waymo gets in there early, they do a really good job. They support local businesses, They'll support local people. You know, New York will take care of itself. They're testing in New York because no other city offers the same level of technical complexity. There's so many data points. Just park in your car on the side of the street. There's so many other cars whizzing by.
There's people on bikes, people on scooters, people on any sort of EV. You know, there's people whizzing around you at all times. So all those things are technical data points. You know? If Waymo's system can learn from that environment, the company may be able to apply those lessons across the entire network. So this is kind of like cramming for a test, right? You get it in New York City, you're testing next day, and you cram, cram, cram until the test comes up.
That's what they're doing with New York City. It's a data gathering mission right now, and nothing more than that. But if they gather the right data, they'll be able to use their AI to interpret it and also use it all across the nation and all across the world eventually. Hey, thank you so much for listening today. I really do appreciate your
support. If you could take a second and hit this subscribe or the follow button on whatever podcast platform that you're listening on right now, I greatly appreciate it. It helps out the show tremendously and you'll never miss an episode. And each episode is about 10 minutes or less to get you caught up quickly. And please, if you want to support the show even more, go to patreon.com Stage Zero and please take care of yourselves and each other, and I'll see you tomorrow.